Many of those legendary Australian kiaps
(patrol officers) who helped develop Papua New Guinea
Such a man was Ian Downs, who died on Tuesday August 24, 2004 , in
the Gold Coast, aged 89, one of the greatest and most legendary men who walked
this country.
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| Ian Downs |
Downs is remembered as the principal
facilitator of the contruction of the Highlands
Highway Highlands ,
Lae and Madang - as well as being a powerful influence in the founding of PNG’s
great coffee industry.
The entire highway today covers about 700
km, rising from sea level to over 8000 ft and much of it going through some of
the most-rugged terrain in PNG.
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A
semi-trailer along the
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It is all situated in the tropics and, as a
result, tropical downpours coupled with the great elevation cause regular and
consistent damage to the Highway and its feeder roads.
Drainage is a critical issue and blocked
drains usually result in landslides, landslips, and large sections of the road
just falling away.
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| Border of Simbu and Western Highlands provinces at Munde |
The highway opened up the Highlands
and provided the initial impetus for the coffee industry to flourish and
prosper, and provided the initial link for the initial political unification
process of PNG.
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The highway, for the Highlands ,
was their gateway to the world, and all of that region’s valuable coffee
exports leave by the same route.
Most of what makes modern living possible
arrives in the Highlands via the highway, and
that entire region’s valuable coffee exports leave by the same route.
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| Main street of Banz, Western Highlands province |
The Porgera gold mine would never have been
established without the highway, and it continues to be a lifeline for Porgera
mine and the oil and gas projects in the Southern
Highlands .
At lower elevations, Ramu Sugar has tonnes
of sugar exports that get to the Lae Port via the Markham
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| Woman struggles along rundown Minj, Western Highlands province, which is a skeleton of its former self |
There is no single infrastructural asset of
greater value to PNG than the Highlands
Highway
It was while reading some most-misleading
information about the Highlands
Highway
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| Roadside market near Yonki, Eastern Highlands |
In 1953, thanks to Ian Downs, you could
drive from Lae to Goroka and on to Mount
Hagen
He was also a member of the first House of
Assembly in 1964, when he collected a record majority of over 100,000 votes –
which goes to show the respect he commanded – to win the seat of the New Guinea
Highlands, a constituency in the central highlands region with a population of
over half a million people.
In
the face of an increasingly nationalist style of politics he decided not to
stand for re-election in 1968, and retired from parliament to take up private
interests.
“He’s the one who got the road (Highlands Highway Downs .
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| Evangelical Bible Church property at Kassam, Eastern Highlands |
“He’s a man and a half this Downs.
“A few more like him and New Guinea
A man of intellect and a great strength of
character, Downs was also a writer of note.
A former patrol officer who rose to the
position of deputy administrator in the mid-1950s, Downs
was a prominent figure in PNG in the last years of the Australian trusteeship,
and possibly the only person who combined the roles of administrator,
politician, planter and historian.
Ian Fairley Graham Downs was born in Edinburgh , Scotland ,
in 1915 and was educated at Brighton and Geelong Grammar Schools
He entered the Royal
Australian Naval
College as a midshipman in 1915, and
in 1935, joined the New
Guinea
Downs took up his appointment to New Guinea
He accompanied John Black and Jim Taylor on
part of their famous Hagen-Sepik patrol in 1938-39.
From 1942 to 1945, Downs was a Coastwatcher
with the Royal Australian Navy in New Guinea
Downs returned to New Guinea
Between 1952-56 he held the position of
district commissioner in Goroka, before resigning to take up coffee farming and
to enter politics.
Succeeding the late George Greathead as
district commissioner to the then Central Highlands, a huge “middle kingdom” of
more than a million people stretching from Kassam in the East to the then Dutch
New Guinea border in the West.
Disillusioned with official policy, Downs resigned from his post as district commissioner in
1956 and in the following year gained election as Member for the New Guinea
Mainland in the Legislative Council.
As a parliamentarian he was further elected
in 1961 to the administrator's advisory council (later known as the
administrator's executive council), a board set up to advise the Administrator
on policy issues.
For the next four years he held the seat of
the New Guinea Highlands, a constituency in the Central Highlands region with a
population of over half a million people.
In the face of an increasingly nationalist
style of politics he decided not to stand for re-election in 1968, and retired
from parliament to take up private interests.
He involved himself deeply in the infant
coffee industry, being instrumental in the creating of the original Coffee
Marketing Board in 1964, of the coffee exporting company Coffee International
Ltd, of the Highlands Farmers & Settlers Association and its trading arm
Farmset Ltd, and was active in many areas of PNG’s early political and social
development.
It was during these years that Downs
pioneered what became known as Korfena Plantations, a group of coffee
plantations centred in the Upper
Asaro Valley
His novel The Stolen Land was
published in 1970, and he returned to Australian in 1970 after 35 years in the
country.
His widely respected publication The
Australian Trusteeship: Papua New
Ian Downs’ contribution to the founding of
modern-day Papua New Guinea
